I have two chapters left before finishing the two tutorials on using iMovie for making videos. iMovie has come a long way! I think I can make decent videos just with this software. After completing at least one video using iMovie I plan to go back to using the more complicated Final Cut Pro that professional moviemakers use to create digital movies.
My first project is editing a short video on the Dubrovnik part of the Italian cruise I took in 2006. I love travelogues. Before my sister persuaded me to take my first trip to Europe (Spain in 2001), I was content to be an armchair traveler. I still have one huge bookcase laden with thick photo-filled books about every conceivable country in the world. Through the years I have accumulated dozens of video tapes that I shot on many of the trips I've taken. They were unusable prior to iMovie coming up with this stupendous ability to stabilize shaky video clips. I handheld them because, after 9/11/01, carrying tripods and other pointy items in your luggage became difficult to impossible. Frankly I also just didn't know what I was doing. I have enough videos for dozens of travelogue movies although the quality of the finished product would be low, lower especially compared to what I have come to learn about professional or commercial movies. Still it's a start and I think I can make entertaining videos even with what I have. I aim to make cutting-edge movies, movies that really show creativity, new ways of looking at familiar sights, new ways of thinking familiar thoughts.
I want to combine travel shows with culture and history. I have been reading Bruce Feiler's three books on the Hebrew Bible that he wrote while actually traveling to the places in the Middle East where biblical events happened. What a powerful formula! The first book, Walking the Bible (2001), was a runaway bestseller and established Feiler at the top of this oeuvre of mixing travel with religion, archaeology and history. That led to his being asked to make a documentary based on the book for public TV in the U.S.
Next on my list are documentaries about people, how individuals choose to live their lives. I want to shoot ordinary people from different cultures talk about what coming to America has allowed them to explore and live about their native cultures, traditions and religions.
Finally, by 2010 or 2011, I want to start shooting videos in the Philippines, interviewing people and documenting the music and religious traditions that are quickly disappearing.
What I want to do is very ambitious. I don't know if I'll have the time before my body and/or mind give out on me. I just tell myself to do what I can.
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